1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink cartridge and an ink cartridge holder. More particularly, the present invention relates to the ink cartridge for supplying ink to a recording apparatus, and the ink cartridge holder for holding the ink cartridge.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been known an ink jet recording apparatus including an ink cartridge holder on which an ink cartridge filled with ink is detachably mounted and for supplying the ink to the ink jet recording apparatus is known. A large-size ink cartridge is used for the ink jet recording apparatus which records on large-size papers, such as posters, in order to cope with a large quantity of ink consumption.
The ink cartridge used for the ink jet recording apparatus may be provided with an IC chip which stores information, such as a type of ink, color of ink, remaining amount of ink and the like. An information reading section is provided on the ink cartridge holder at a position facing the IC chip when the ink cartridge is mounted on the ink cartridge holder, and the IC chip on the ink cartridge and the information reading section on the ink cartridge holder are electrically connected and communicate with each other.
However, there is variation in the ink cartridge holder, the ink cartridge, their components and assembly of these components. When the relative position between the IC chip on the ink cartridge and the reading section on the ink cartridge holder deviates, the electric connection between them comes to fail and it causes communication error or interruption between them. In particular, when the size of the ink cartridge is large, the magnitude of the gap of the relative position between the IC chip and the reading section due to the product variation tends to become large.
Moreover, in order to mount the ink cartridge on the ink cartridge holder easily, there may be clearance in the ink cartridge holder. It is preferable to provide larger clearance in the ink cartridge holder for the large size ink cartridge. However, in this case, looseness due to the clearance may cause the gap of the relative position between the IC chip and the reading section, as mentioned above. Therefore, it is highly likely that the communication interruption between them will occur.